Armored Core 4

Posted: 03/23/07

The Armored Cores series has been around for some time, managing to find its niche with hardcore gearheads with a penchant for giant robots. Armored Core 4 takes things up a notch, making its nuts and bolts design even more in-depth. The question is whether all the customization options have limited the game’s audience or created an entirely new one.

The game takes place in the distant future, which as every gamer knows, is post-apocalyptic. Mega-corporations vie for control of the populace while mercenary mech pilots known as Ravens carry out their agendas by force. Players assume the role of a lone mercenary, taking orders from a worrisome female retainer as long as her checks don’t bounce.

Like past Armored Core games, the story is relatively complex and convoluted, dealing with intercontinental politics and conflicts rather than really involving the player in the story by fleshing out characters. It’s pretty lackluster stuff, and in this respect, nothing has changed.

The single-player game is decidedly linear, following a series of missions that are broken up into chapters which are book-ended by cutscenes to advance the story. Previous games allow you to make choices about which corporation or colony to fight for, but this time around it’s just one mission after the next. Some missions are optional, but if you want to build the fastest or the strongest mech that money can buy, you’ll want to complete them all.

This formula has always been a constant in the Armored Core games, so it’s a bit of a letdown to see that it’s been simplified here. It’s all pretty boring stuff, and frankly, we’ve seen it all many times before.

Traditionally, Armored Core games include an arena option to distract you from the story mode, where you can fight your way against AI opponents to the top of the heap. This time it’s all being done online the way it was always meant to be played, making it much more fun and engaging since you’re fighting against real human opponents rather than A.I.-controlled bots.

Players can get into several different modes with up to seven other players via the PlayStation network, Xbox Live, system link, and split-screen. The modes include one on one matches, two on two, and four on four team matches, or four- and eight-player battle royales.

A ranking system is also in place for those who like to spend most of their time online. For gamers with an ego the size of a giant robot and a mean competitive streak, this is what they’ve been waiting to play.

In all, you’ll get a lot of play time out of Armored Core 4 with its various modes and options. Its online offerings aren’t as interesting as those in Chromehounds, but they’re still fairly robust. That is, if you can tolerate the rigid, sim-based gameplay.

The cornerstone of the Armored Core series has always been its highly customizable mechs, or ACs, which can be tinkered with in a multitude of ways. From choosing different arms, legs, torsos, and heads to different boosters, generators, defensive parts, and of course, weapons. The game offers players literally thousands of options to choose from before hitting the battlefield.

The process of fine-tuning a mech can be compared to tuning up a futuristic car. It’s a lot of hard work, but it can be very rewarding. Basically, you try to balance weight and energy with speed and firepower. The construction and tuning system has gotten even deeper, allowing you to manually adjust boosting thresholds and other minute, but potentially crucial, details. Thankfully, they’ll calibrate automatically if it’s too much for you to deal with, and for the average player, it will be way too much.

Parts are bought with paychecks you get for blowing stuff up and clearing missions. You’re able to save several different AC configurations so that you won’t have to sort and swap every part over and over again, but with a limited budget, quickly shifting your parts around can still become a problem.

Hardcore fans that love this amount of depth will be completely satisfied. Others will be left scratching their heads, wishing they could just blow something up already.

In fact, if you’re looking for a fast-paced action game with easy controls and a simple, user-friendly interface, this isn’t it. The action is definitely fast-paced, especially online, but the controls constantly ride the line between fun and frustration. The same can be said of the entire game.

Before each mission you’re given a briefing that lays out your objectives and gives some basic intel about the enemies that you’ll be facing. These briefings never give you more than a vague idea of how to prepare yourself for the fight, and you’re practically forced to radically overhaul your design from one mission to the next in order to find a sensible solution. Some gamers may enjoy the demanding challenge, while others will want to throw their controllers across the room. Often times it’s excessively difficult to fulfill an objective without a perfectly-suited mech design. It’s rigid and requires tedious trial and error. Mission types are pretty standard, including escorting, defending, attacking, and assassination.

Regardless of the configuration, your machine can feel clunky at first, especially with heavier mechs, but the series has at least moved toward a solid analogue control scheme that isn’t completely baffling. Controls for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions are identical, allowing you to switch between handheld and shoulder-mounted weapons on the fly, relegating the boost controls to the trigger buttons for easier strafing, flying, and the newly added quick-boost button, which can make it much easier to avoid incoming attacks.

Playing Armored Core 4 can be an exercise in frustration, yet the feeling of accomplishment you get when you finally get things right can be a nice payoff.

Past the faster, more boost-friendly gameplay, a lot has stayed the same in Armored Core 4. The learning curve is steep, the controls take effort to master, and the single-player game is ultimately there to prepare you for head-to-head matches. It’s a very specific game experience that rewards trial and error and fails to appeal to a broad audience in the process.

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